Mrs. Angry Engineer

We flew through some awesome weather on the way back. We saw a lightning bolt hit our wingtip. That was cool. Unfortunately, I didn't get a picture of that.

Korea Travels - Day 11, Korean Wedding Part 3

After the wedding, many pictures were taken. Then, the newlyweds went to a special area with the groom's family. The couple held the white cloth between them and the groom's family through nuts at them for the couple to catch. The more the couple caught, the more children they would have. The larger nuts signified boys and the smaller signified girls. The couple is supposed to eat all of them the night of thier wedding.

Sangmi's family Picture.
Back Row : Sangmi (bride), Sanghyun (groom), Sangwa (bride's sister)
Front Row : Sangmi's Mother

Buffet Table.

Korea Travels - Day 11, Korean Wedding Part 2

The wedding was held at the Korea House.

"The Korea House was opened in 1981. It is a traditional Korean building that introduces the culture and lifestyle of Koreans where you can experience the traditional architecture and the classical atmosphere. The building was built after the Jagyeong-jeon building of Gyeongbok palace of the Joseon dynasty. It is the only building built in the traditional architecture style."
Quote was taken from the Official Korea Travel Site.

Here, the groom is setting a duck on the table. Ducks mate for life, so this is a gesture from the groom that he will provide for her for life.

Traditionally, the bride and groom wouldn't know each other before the wedding. Therefore, a white cloth is draped over the bride's arms and is held in front of her face.

During the ceremony, there was a lot of bowing. There was music provided by 6 musicians, each playing one of the 6 traditional Korean instruments. I was surprised how loud the crowd was during the ceremony. People were running in and out, talking on cell phones, etc. It was more like a dinner party, than a wedding.

Korea Travels - Day 11, Korean Wedding

Sunday, October 16, 2005

Today is Sangmi and Sanghyun's wedding. They are having a traditional Korean wedding, although a western style wedding is more common nowdays.

Here is Sangmi and I before the wedding. Sangmi still needs the red stickers on her cheeks.

Sangmi is learning how to bow with all those clothes on. The white cloth in front will be held by her throughout the ceremony. That is going to be tiring.

Here is the groom. He is wearing a traditional horse hair hat.

Korea Travels - Day 10, Changdeokgung Palace Part 2

The sign above this place roughly translates to, "Place to create babies". This was the royal bedroom.

Nakseonjae, seen below, was first built in 1847 for the royal concubine, Lady Kim.

The images below are from the not so secret, secret garden.

The large two storied pavilion is called Juamnu Pavilion. The first floor was "Gyujanggak", the royal library, and the second floor was a reading room. The other building was used for book storage.

Korea Travels - Day 10, Changdeokgung Palace

To visit Changdeokgung Palace, you must go on a tour. They are provided in Korean, Japanese, Chinese, and English. If you go online, you can purchase an extended tour that covers more of the grounds. The online tour is over 2 hours. The tour at the gate, which is what we took, is a little over an hour. Both tours cover the secret garden.

(Note : The "English" link will provide information on other palaces in Korea, too. )

Look at the path towards the building. There is a raised path with rows of what look to be tombstones on either side. The path is raised off of the ground with a center aisle raised again. Ony royalty used the center path. The two side paths would be used for governement officials and military. The tombstones are really markers for the different officers. The markings on the stone represent different rankings. Officers would stand in front of the stone matching their rank.

The little statues on the edges of the roof are guardians.

This is where the king sits.

In the above pictures, you may be able to see a blue roofed building on the right. That is Seongjeon. It is the place where the king received civil and military officials and handled matters of state. The queen only used this building on occasion. In 1470, the queen held a feast for the elderly. She also held events encouraging the cultivation of silkworms. This is the only building left in Korea with blue tiles.

The blue tiles were only on buildings for royalty. Almost all the buildings were painted red, the color of fire, for protection; ironically, all the red buildings caught fire at least once. The eaves were painted green for nature and peace.

Korea Travels - Day 9, COEX and Hyundai Department Store

For lunch, we had pimbeembap. It is a mixture of rice, beans and barley with various vegetables on top. Added to it is sesame oil and red pepper paste. This was by far my favorite dish in Korea. Along with it, we had miso and a bowl of some sort of cooked bean that tasted similar to turkey, but had a texture like couscous. After having some wonderful pimbeembap, we headed to the Techno Mart. Techno Mart is an electronic shopping center. I highly recommend checking this out. It is floors and floors of electronics. The basement and 1st floor contains other department store items.

After Techno Mart, we headed to the COEX building. We were very surprised at all the shopping that can be done here. Especially surprising for me was the Hyundai Department Store. I have never seen a GM department store in the US. The department store was very nice. The basement level had all sorts of food that smelled wonderful. There was a place that only grilled toast. You could get it with cheese or other toppings. I thought that was funny; we wouldn’t see anything like that in the US, either.

Here are some skyline pictures from this area.

Korea Travels - Day 9, Deoksugung Palace Part 6

The courtyard of Seokjejeon contains this fountain and trellis.

The details on the inside of the buildings here are amazing. Here is an example.

Eric really liked these dump trucks. They could be useful in our yard. ;)

Korea Travels - Day 9, Deoksugung Palace Part 5

Seokjojeon is made of stone with a Neo-Classicist style. The upper parts of the pillars are in the Ionian style, whereas the interior was decorated in the Rococo style. This building was used as a place to receive foreign envoys during the Great Korean Empire. It was also used as a meeting place for the US-USSR Joint Commission. Now, it is used as the National Museum and the National Museum of Modern Art.

Korea Travels - Day 9, Deoksugung Palace Part 4

Seogeodang was my favorite building in the palace. It has a natural wood color and the designs are very intricut. This is the only building in this palace that did not burn down at least once.

Eric noted that on the temples and palace structures, you could find swastikas. I was surprised how much these symbols were used in the past. Eric noted that Native American Indians used swastikas until after the war. They declared they would not use this symbol again since it has been befouled. Like many, I associate this symbol with the Nazi party. It is a shame that this symbol is associated with so much negativity.

Korea Travels - Day 9, Deoksugung Palace Part 3

This bell has been in Gyeongbokgung Palace, Chunggyeonggung Palace, and its current resting place int Deoksugung Palace.

King Sejong had great foresight. He created Hangeul, the Korean alphabet, which celebrated a birthday on the 9th of October. He created this alphabet because his constituents could speak the language, but could not write it because there were so many characters to learn. Using the alphabet, they were able to write how the word sounded, rather than write the picture associated with the word. Having Hangeul allowed the transition to the computer era to be very smooth. You can get keyboards that have both roman characters and Hangeul characters on them.